Up and down

Preparatory drawing for Caprice 56. Up and down

This is one of Goya's strangest compositions. A sort of Warlock, with the legs of a goat and a human face, holds in his hands a small figure whose hair and hands are on fire. Two other figures, on either side, fall into the void. The etching will make the surface on which this figure is seated more precise, as it is a globe.

The title already gives a clue as to what he wanted to represent in this scene: the fickleness of fortune, which can raise a man to the top and plunge him into the depths of the abyss. The period in which Goya painted this picture was politically convulsive, and it is thought that the figures depicted are Godoy and the ministers he removed from office, Jovellanos and Saavedra; or, as Edith Helman suggests, they could also be Floridablanca and Aranda.